Rugmuncher. I notice you make no attempt whatsoever to support your arguments from a credible source nor to explain why my points are invalid. Just to be clear – you’ve made utterly incorrect assumptions about a complete stranger based on your own embittered prejudice, and you think professionals who want a quality short-term let should go down the council?? Classic. Also – just to be sure – you’re saying that everyone else is allowed savings and a pension (and for that matter, a foreign holiday?) but I’m not? That’s a bit dictatorial for a supposedly even-minded and sympathetic lefty isn’t it? And my cheap rents and hours of physical toil to produce nice homes for people who DONTWANT to buy are a blight on those people are they – are they not allowed a choice in your world?? How very magnanimous of you. Yes, you are definitely a credible person worth hearing more from. Please do demonstrate further why some village somewhere is missing its idiot.

James McKindley commented
2015-10-07 12:19:04 +0100

Just one other little point Foxwatcher (you can’t for some reason even admit to your own name, or is it Mr Foxwatcher?)…. How is it that you know there were 17 landlords looking at the property and one FTB??? You’re either making it all up (most likely) or you’re an estate agent. If the latter then it’s you that’s driving up prices not the LL’s. And for the record there is no such thing as a guaranteed mortgage so that’s why I think you’re making this up and not an estate agent. There is a DIP (decision in principle) but the FTB can get that too. It is no different a process. And I’m fascinated to know where this property is because every LL I know say that prices are too high for them to buy. Please advise as I’ll look at whether I can shift my strategy to your area. :)

Foxwatcher commented
2015-10-07 11:30:10 +0100

James and James, fine words trying to defend your indefensible positions. Do you have children who have saved for a deposit for years, desperate to buy their own property who can’t get on the housing ladder due to leeches like you two? And apparently despite that, you can’t afford the lifestyles you choose to pursue. I think you need to reassess your priorities, consider others and not hide behind altruistic gobbledegook. If you weren’t making a bomb, you wouldn’t buy and do up properties just for the good of others. You’re profiting at the expense of those less fortunate than yourselves, and trying to justify it, Your posts up here are permanent proof of this. I wouldn’t bother answering this, as you’ll only make yourselves look more and more greedy. Leave bring a landlord to a reputable organisation that understands it and is not in it for personal profit.

James McKindley commented
2015-10-07 07:00:04 +0100

Oh Foxwatcher it is not I with blinkers. Let’s correct you on the lifestyle you assume I have but firstly thank you for the prompt about banking. I haven’t been on online banking for several days and there are many invoices I have to pay (all property related). I have no 4×4. My wife has an old Toyota Corolla and I have an old van. We’ve not had a foreign holiday for 5 years and not even been away at all this year. Indeed if you saw me in my normal working gear you may well mistake me for a tramp. I am a hands on landlord that understands property, understands the market and understands the needs of my tenants. You clearly are none of these and don’t really know what you’re talking about my old chum. Like I said I don’t have any houses that would be of interest to a FTB but now I will have to evict several families that are settled in their homes, kids are in local schools and so forth. Yes we most certainly do need more housing for youngsters but this tax will not help them in any way. Paul Johnson, one of the most senior and respected economists in the country has pointed that out, or do you know more than him too? I understand that you think BTL is wrong, that’s fine. It’s your opinion and you are very welcome to it, but are you so distorted in your views that you want to see families uprooted and kids having to change schools? The social impact of this tax change is horrendous but you’re just so biased you don’t care who it hurts.

James Roberts commented
2015-10-07 01:10:30 +0100

Fox watcher, you really haven’t got the faintest idea about reality and have arguments based only on assumptions you’ve imagined for your own narrow-minded view of the world.

Let’s examine your comments more closely.

1. You think tax rates above 100% of income are fair? Perhaps you’d take a different view if it happened in your industry as no one in the western world with a brain cell can see justice in that.

2. You think all housing should be social/council/university? Really? So the young professionals building a career, or moving to the city for the first time, or wanting a short-term let, or sharing with friends for fun, or post-divorce, or who have a home elsewhere, or are in the country short-term etc etc etc… they should all be in council housing? What if anyone, anywhere, wants to CHOOSE where to live rather than be told? What if their aspiration is for more space or much higher quality than a council is offering? What if they have the means and don’t fancy living in a council house? And you do realise that university accomodation is increasingly being supplied by large corporations – all out for a profit far bigger than that enjoyed by your private landlord?

3. What would you know of my car, my bank account, or where I go on holiday? Did I make any assumptions about your financial position? And you do realise there are wealthy tenants too, right?

4. The vast majority of private landlords are not the make-believe Disney villains of the press’s (and your) easily-fed imagination. They are firemen, nurses, teachers, driving instructors, writers, the elderly and many many others who don’t have any sort of savings or pension provision. Good to know you want all these people to be impoverished unnecessarily and state-dependent for their futures. Yes, that’ll help!

5. Your assessment of the poor FTB getting squeezed out is like something out of The Guardian. They regularly beat me to properties as they have no business expenses to consider and can thus pay more. Their 5% deposit helps against my 20-25%. Oh and I already buy society a hospital each year whereas Im not sure what your FTB contributes. I’m pretty sure they’re not buying derelict houses and then spending £25k a time working to make them into a quality home for someone who didn’t fancy putting in the risk, or the hours.

None of your fantasy arguments stand up to scrutiny. I worked and saved until I was 30 to get my first home then worked and saved a whole lot more to invest my earnings wisely so that I wasn’t a burden on everyone else. Only people like you get to think of this as being a bad thing! Hilarious!

Foxwatcher commented
2015-10-06 20:40:04 +0100

James McKindley’s 19:09 shows just how blinkered buy to let owners are. “There’s no study, so what you say can’t be true”. I’ve seen it with my own eyes in my locality and elsewhere many times, James. Recently, a private house came on the market. The first day of viewing brought 18 people. 17 of these were prospective buy to let buyers, with guaranteed mortgages. The 18th, who wanted to buy his first home, stood no chance, so had to go back to his rented place, lining his landlord’s pocket even more. There are many other examples, so stop denying what is plain common sense. FYI, if rental properties were owned as I’d described earlier, the profits made by those organisations could and should be put straight back into building more properties, to help with the issues on the lack of building over the last 30 years. I agree with much of what Doreen says on this subject. James, you need to stop being completely selfish, stop checking your bank account every five minutes, stop having so many foreign holidays and weekends away, sell the spare 4×4 and all the other trappings of your pampered life. Sell a couple of your cheaper places at cost price to young families desperate to own their place, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll begin to do something with your life for someone else. This is a bigger subject that it’s possible to discuss here, but just think of the consequences on the younger generation of your activities, which are designed solely to make your life more comfortable for little work,

This week those campaigning for a better private rented sector received an early Christmas present with the announcement that the Communities Secretary had approved the majority of Newham's proposal for a renewed borough-wide landlord licensing scheme.

Most debates around housing focus on young adults, the drastic fall in their rate of home ownership and ways to boost the number of first time buyers.

Far less attention, however, is given to the vast numbers of renters who are already too old to get a mortgage and face a lifetime of renting instead. As more of them reach retirement age, the state will start paying more of their rent, and faces enormous costs unless it makes some fundamental changes to the housing market. Because politicians only operate with 5-year horizons, few are fretting about the implications of lifetime renting.

The greatest cause of homelessness is the end of an assured shorthold tenancy. They usually run for six months and at the end of that period families often have to move. The solution is clear: we need longer tenancies and more security of tenure for families, but also assurances to landlords that they will get paid their rent and that the tenants will behave themselves in accordance with the contract they have signed. I ask the Minister to update us on where we are going with lengthening tenancies, which would dramatically reduce homelessness at a stroke. Perhaps we can do that.

With home ownership unaffordable and council housing unavailable, private renters are living longer in a tenure that wasn't designed to provide long term homes. The constant threat of your landlord deciding to sell up or move back in means that you have none of the stability that a home is supposed to provide.

New polling from Survation, commissioned by us, exposes the impact this has on tenants' lives. It shows that private renters are more anxious about the security of their home and this is holding them back from investing time in their home and their local community.

The internet has already shaken up the music industry, television, taxis and self-catering holidays. Investors are now looking for the next industry to disrupt with technology and property seems ripe for the picking.

As the national voice of private renters, we agree that the property industry as it stands fails its consumers in too many ways, so things need to change. Even when we succeed in changing the law, like the forthcoming letting fees ban, we still need to ensure that it's implemented properly and the industry adapts in the right way.

But we can't allow slick and revolutionary new services or initiatives to simply treat tenants as cash cows in the same way that many letting agents and landlords currently do. So this is what we think the market needs - and how the tenant should benefit.

Since the east London borough of Newham introduced mandatory borough-wide licensing of all private landlords in 2013, improvements in the sector have been indisputable. Criminal landlords are being driven out of the borough, standards and safety in the sector have improved and enforcement has dramatically increased.

Yet with the scheme due to expire on 31 December 2017, government is now more than four weeks overdue in making a decision on approval of a new, five-year scheme, to start in the new year.